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How Anarchy Works
(youtu.be)
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this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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Anarchism
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Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.
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Where I live out in the remote countryside functions very much like one of these anarchist societies. However it's hard to imagine doing away with the fundamental concept that keeps peace, the ownership of land.
The megascale farmers are always chewing at the borders of "the hills" and snapping up anything they can get. They used to ignore our rocky and rough land but their greed knows no bounds, and they already own everything else. Without the law to enforce our ownership we would be quickly run over by their much greater resources.
Aside from that all of us small farmers work together and share and help each other only because we can and for the benefit of all.
However I did get called out on a visit to a friend in the city as a "Vault dweller" who would acquire the things I need, return home to my little society, roll the door closed and continue to watch the rest of the world slowly collapse. I feel like anarchy really only works for this sort of small isolated community and unfortunately in a world of 8 billion, it's simply not workable as organized states will simply run over any group that doesn't collect taxes to maintain a military or other means of projecting power.
Without that "vault door" to protect you I just don't see an anarchist society surviving in today's environment.
you're missing that the concept of ownership is protecting them, not you. They have the resources to keep gobbling up more land and eventually one bad year, or an accident will cause more and more of you and your neighbours to sell, whereas they are protected by the state as being "too big to fail". land ownership is a trap you've willingly accepted. The end result is a neo-feudalism with a few mega-farming corpos owning everything and you being a serf in all but name.
I agree that this is the end state of our current system. Megafarms raking in vast profits and everyone working on the land is a "hired man" which is just a serf as you say. I'm just unsure if there's any way to stop it.
The problem I see is that once again without a state to enforce that non-ownership, there's nothing to prevent groups from organizing to take resources from others. Instead of being slowly bought out, you'll be run over by a warlord and slaughtered. This tends to happen in 3rd world countries, you have a period of peace and cooperation, a building up of little farming communities until the power vacuum attracts men with balaclavas and AKs.
Resource accumulation always leads to power, and that seems to be a fundamental weakness of anarchy. It works great in a society of small players with small goals, but how do you deal with those that would own the entire world and the followers they accrue?
Yo don't need a state to defend against warlords. There's no greater motivation to defend yourself than preserving your liberty.
There's no resource accumulation in anarchy. That's the whole point
Right, but the problem is that anarchy by its nature isn't "enforced". So it exists in an ecosystem alongside other ways of living.
If others choose to accumulate resources and use them to destroy their anarchic neighbour to seize their resources, the anarchists will obviously have to defend themselves.
How do you defend yourselves against such a threat? To do so you are forced to accumulate resources. And thus anarchy ends up progressing to feudalism. While I like the concept of anarchy and believe it works on a small scale, in practice just about every society that is in conflict with others has followed the same path from anarchy->monarchy->democracy->oligarchy, almost as if it's forced by game theory principles.
I feel like anarchy does work, but only in isolation from competition.
Accumulation of resources implies exploitation. Anarchists will agitate those exploited to overthrow their exploiters.
That doesn't follow. Unless by "accumulate resources" you mean the generic practice of a society having stuff? Anarchists don't need a single person accumulating stuff to defend themselves.
I think you should read more about anarchism instead of imagining wild scenarios. Rest assured that anarchists have considered the defense argument.
You're right, as long as greedy people and a means of hoarding resources exists (e.g. money) people will be able to accumulate power. This is why anarchy is often shorthand for "anarcho-communism" which is moneyless and removes a malicious person's ability to pay others to back them up leaving them vulnerable to self-defense (which is now not prevented by the state) by the communities they are trying to exploit.
This would go along of course with the end of capitalism which is what puts people in a position where risking their lives for money makes sense in the first place.
Two ways to deal with it
Eliminate means of resource accumulation (i.e. money) -- with communism
Keep in check the tiny number of individuals with the dark-triad traits that cause them to want to accumulate power -- with self-defense.
This all needs to happen with major changes in culture and could not come from a simple revolution.
Couple thought experiments for those interested:
This Subthread addresses how we premempt violent, conquistadoric tendencies (starts at home) -- and how we can prevent the reemergence of heirarchies
This video (and really the whole channel) "dares" to vividly dream; to envision: A world taken back from the clutches of the planetary work machine.
Capitalist Realism, i suspect, has a Heirarchal sibling, intent on keeping us convinced that "Resistance is Futile." Therefore Dreaming and "being Utopian" are not only of utility, but crucial and worth celebrating